


Brother

by Kira_Elric



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Love, Brothers, Fluff and Angst, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 17:24:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17288264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kira_Elric/pseuds/Kira_Elric
Summary: Edward's musings about his Brother and the situation he put them in.  Alphonse being his usual soft caring self.  The Elric Brothers deserve a break.





	Brother

It was a blessing and a curse all the same. The sound of metal footsteps clanking behind him brought him  comfort over these past years but as time drug on, the guilt ate at his core more and more every day. 

He couldn’t explain it and he sure as **_hell_** couldn’t tell his brother. He was the one who did this to him after all - the one who trapped him in that unfeeling shell of a body; constricting him to never be able to feel anything even reminiscent of human ever again.

In all honesty, when push came to shove, Edward felt like he had two deaths on his hands - he’d not only killed his mother again in his arrogance, but killed his brother with his hubris, and now the sound of his guilt was forever following him with the sound of empty metal footsteps. He still cared for him. He looked after him. In a way, Alphonse even almost mothered him. He couldn’t count the times he’d dropped from exhaustion somewhere in the midst of studying and woken up in whatever room they’d been staying. How many times had Alphonse carried his weight? He honestly couldn’t say. 

He’d grow tired from walking too long in times when the city they were going to was too far from the station to take a train, and there was no place to rent a car and before his body had the chance to fall, he’d be up in his brother’s arms again.   Alphonse had carried him through storms, through deserts, and through sleeting snow. He’d braved the worst of conditions and saved his life on multiple occasions.  His precious little brother still loved him.

His precious little brother had  ** _forgave_**  him - and was what Edward couldn’t wrap his mind around even to this day. The clanking sound of his own left foot and the heavy feeling that sometimes left a numbness in his right shoulder - he could live with those; He could carry those weights - but the weight of Alphonse’s forgiveness was something he hadn’t quite figured out how to handle just yet. 

Their lives didn’t have to be like this. They didn’t have to be this tangled mess of dangerous investigations into things that teenage boys shouldn’t be risking their lives over. They didn’t have to be bound to the state before they were even men, giving their contest away to those in power in order to find something that could fix a sin that should have never been committed. They didn’t  _have_ to be like this, but that soft shocking sensation on his right side was quick to remind him of why they  _were_ like this and that it was  **all his fault.**

He was scribbling furiously in his notebook as he usually did when he was alone, surrounded by books he’d checked out from the library, desperately working out equations to find something,  _ **anything**_  that would help him fulfill this promise that he wasn’t even sure was possible.  He just needed some kind of breakthrough.....

**“Brother?”**

The sound jolted him upwards, arms jerking and knocking the books to the floor, scattering papers and causing a general mess of things. 

**“Sorry. I didn’t mean to _wake_ you.” **

Gold eyes stared back at the metal face that was fixed on his with a questioning look.  What was he talking about...when did he even get here... did he go out for something?

 **“Ed? Are you in there?”**  A brown glove waved in front of his face. 

The Alchemist shook his head for a moment as if to put things back into their proper place and then stared at his brother. **“What do you mean, ‘wake me’?”** He sounded, a half offended groan in his voice. His head turned to watch a blanket roll from his shoulders and settle at his waist.

 **“You’ve been out for a few hours, Brother. You were out cold when I came back so I thought I’d just let you sleep.....”** The sound of laughing when one was just an empty suit of armor was especially loud as even just a snicker ended up becoming quite the echo. 

Edward’s face twisted into a scowl. 

 **“What are you laughing for?** ” He barked. 

A hand raised, pointed at his face and still the suit of armor continued to laugh.  **“Brother, your face...”** Alphonse was unable to finish his sentence. 

A paper fell away, fluttering down to the table revealing a smudged mock up of a transmutation circle on drawn on it. Gold eyes followed it, growing wider as they took in the information.  **“Come here!”**  Edward demanded, racing over to use his Brother as a make shift mirror, and he was able to make out enough to tell that there was indeed pen lines smudged all over his cheek.  It seemed his researched had double printed it’s self when he fell asleep. 

Alphonse still couldn’t stop laughing at the sight of his elder sibling with half a transmutation circle smudged on his cheek along with some blurred words and soon other Elric was laughing too. 

After several minutes, they collected themselves, and Alphonse was rubbing his hand against his brother’s face trying to wipe the ink off. He endured. In that moment the ever present twisting that normally sat in the pit of Edward’s stomach faded. He obeyed as Alphonse commanded him to hold still as the suit of armor worked to clean his face. 

His brother still loved him all right and at the moment that was all he needed.

He’d pull through this. They’d pull through this.  Even if he couldn’t fix his own body as long as he could fix Al’s that would be alright, because after everything his brother had done for him, he needed to make things even.  It was his job to take care of Alphonse. 

He was the  _older_ brother after all.   

**Author's Note:**

> I just really needed to write something and Angsty Fluff is what became of it.


End file.
